dramatispersonae | heliodor

You find yourself in a beautiful red room, the edges of each wall adorned with real gold accents. At the center of the room is a long table, several chairs on either side of it, perfect for very serious conferences. In the middle of the table is a plate of strawberry jam tarts atop it, one per teammate present.

In the corner of the room is a hole in the ground, only large enough for a small animal to fit through. Next to it is a flat iron bar, curled at its tip, where a golden bell has been hung from it.

Finally, on one wall is a large poster which reads (or you find read aloud to you, if you cannot read):

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie.
When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing.
Oh, isn't that a dainty dish to set before a King?

The King was in his counting house counting out his money,
The Queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey.
The Maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So you think it was his fault before, when it was an "accident"?

Heliodor matters more to me than judgment of fiction! Changing it will do us no favors, and we have no reason to!

Because he was directly responsible for his death then! Not in this scenario, where the Blackbirds were the ones to kill him!

We have every reason to, if we want to make sure the decisions we make are as just as we can make them!

I don't see how being an enabler or accomplice makes him any more innocent. For what reason should we lift his burden, when his incompetence is unchanged? Numbers? By that logic, will the blackbirds have a lighter sentence for being many instead of one?

No. They should have a heavier one. But he might not be an accomplice at all. He could be completely innocent.

You all chose to condemn him more heavily because of a mistake. Is delivering another party's plot to completion a less severe mistake?

. . . when he's ignorant, when he's being used, when he is not directly responsible for the King's death? It is.

He was just as ignorant before.

He was directly responsible before. Now, he isn't.

He was involved!

Because if he was manipulated to, it's not just him being careless. It's someone being malicious and using him.

Do you think it's not a cook's job to know the quality of the food they serve?

But not thinking of the food being dangerous and being essentially told it's not dangerous are two different things. One is carelessness, the other is naivety in trusting someone.

The second sounds just as careless to me.

Have you forgotten? I am a guard.

I know, but it's your job to be suspicious of people. Not really the same for a cook.

Someone with that kind of attitude shouldn't have been let into direct service. Cook or guard or child, calling a security breach that severe a "mistake" and an "accident" only pisses me off more!

[ tenses, briefly, and blinks rapidly a couple times ]

[...it's just food though. Heck, this King guy sounds like a picky eater at first.]

Then why was he allowed in to direct service?

Either because he's a liar or because this king has shoddy internal defenses. Given what a piece of scum he sounds like too, neither would surprise me. Maybe it's both.

He was there for years and he kept to the schedule for a long while. Kind of surprising there wasn't a breach BEFORE the change.

[ my head hurts and I don't have patience with this kind of thing ]

And risk his source of income?

He still did. A pay cut is better than none.

[But let's say I'm getting people's attention and that whole possible mass conspiracy with the servants can come to light.]

heliodor

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